The man accused of murdering Sunshine Coast teenager Daniel Morcombe confessed to the crime after being netted in an undercover police operation, a court has been told.

The trial of the accused, 44-year-old Brett Peter Cowan, began in Brisbane’s Supreme Court on Tuesday after the jury was selected on Monday.

In his opening statement, Crown prosecutor Michael Byrne QC told the jury Mr Cowan told "new-found friends" in 2011, some eight years after Daniel disappeared, that he killed the 13-year-old schoolboy.

12 Feb
On their hands and knees, shoulder to shoulder, State Emergency Service volunteers crawled through bushland in the Sunshine Coast hinterland looking for the remains of slain schoolboy Daniel Morcombe.